UNV Events at WSIS in the Works

UNV Events at WSIS in the Works - October 2003

The UN Volunteers program is preparing for its participation at the World Summit on the Information Society, which will be held December 10 - 12 in Geneva, with a mock telecenter and live online events in the works, in addition to contributions to the WSIS Declaration of Principles and Action Plan.

In prepatory meetings leading up to the summit, as well as at the summit itself, UNV is promoting the importance of volunteers in helping to bridge the digital divide and to help people in the developing world take advantage of the "Information Society." Read more

At the summit, UNV will also showcase both UNITeS and its Online Volunteering service. As part of these activities, UNV will create a mock telecenter at the "ICT4D Platform" exhibition area to demonstrate how community technology centers operate in the developing world. UN Volunteers from the field will help staff this center, along with local volunteers and staff from UNV headquarters, to help give visitors an idea of what helping people in the developing world is like and why collaborations among different groups is so important. UNV is also planning to have at least two online events for the summit. Plans include online chats with particular themes and guests, and a live web cast. Details about these online events will be posted in November to the UNITeS WSIS pages

The exhibition is designed as a village with a market square in the center into which five streets run. Each of these five streets is dedicated to a particular theme. In "Equitable Access Street", for example, there are exhibitors who have concentrated in one way or another on the subject of access to information and information technologies. "Human Capacity Street" is devoted to the acquisition of ICT know-how and the use of ICT in education. "Communications for Development Street" concerns itself with the role of communications technologies and the media in poverty and crisis stricken societies. The other streets are dedicated to "Local Knowledge and Content" and "Policy and Implementation".

Read complete details about UNV's participation in and contributions to the WSIS.

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